Notes

WARNING: This page is not suitable for the average user. Information in this page is for experienced hackers only. The Raspberry Pi foundation will release pre-built SD cards which are suitable for use by the average user.

Please note that the Raspberry Pi isn't released yet - this page is a community work in progress in preparation for the launch. If something doesn't work or isn't covered in these guides, please feel free to ask on the Forum. But before you ask there, make sure you read the FAQs.

This page is based on BeagleBoardBeginners and lots of this material applies to BeagleBoard and not to Raspberry Pi. Specifically, most Raspberry Pi users do not have access to a serial port (it's on the GPIOs but you need a board or cable to convert 3.3V UART signals to RS-232 or USB) so the serial port information doesn't usually apply. Also, many Raspberry Pi users will buy pre-programmed SD cards and can skip to reading RPi Hardware Basic Setup. We expect that once Raspberry Pi boards become generally available helpful volunteers will update this page to match Raspberry Pi or point to better information elsewhere.

You'll likely also want a USB mouse, a case, and a USB Hub (a necessity for Model A). A powered USB Hub will reduce the demand on the RPi. To connect to the Internet, you'll need either an Ethernet/LAN cable (Model B) or a USB WiFi adaptor (either model). See RPi VerifiedPeripherals for more information on supported peripherals.

Serial connection

Advanced SD card setup

Now we want to use an SD card to install some GNU/Linux distro in it and get more space for our stuff. You can use either an SD or SDHC card. In the latter case of course take care that your PC card reader also supports SDHC.
Be aware that you are not dealing with an x86 processor, but instead a completely different architecture called ARM, so don't forget to install the ARM port for the distro you are planning to use.

Our first step will be the formatting of the SD card.

Formatting the SD card via the mkcard.txt script

(to be completed)

Download mkcard.txt from ???.

$ chmod +x mkcard.txt

$ ./mkcard.txt /dev/sdx, Where x is the letter of the card. You can find this by inserting your card and then running dmesg | tail. You should see the messages about the device being mounted in the log. Mine mounts as sdc.

Once run, your card should be formatted.

Formatting the SD card via fdisk "Expert mode"

First, lets clear the partition table:

================================================================================
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Command (m for help): o
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)
================================================================================

NOTE: For convenience, you can add the -L option to the mkfs.ext3 command to assign a volume label to the new ext3 filesystem. If you do that, the new (automatic) mount point under /media when you insert that SD card into some Linux hosts will be based on that label. If there's no label, the new mount point will most likely be a long hex string, so assigning a label makes manual mounting on the host more convenient.

Setting up the boot partition

The boot partition must contain the following files, get them from one of the official images:

bootcode.bin : 2nd stage bootloader, starts with SDRAM disabled

loader.bin : 3rd stage bootloader, starts with SDRAM enabled

start.elf: The GPU binary firmware image, provided by the foundation.

kernel.img: The OS kernel to load on the ARM processor. Normally this is Linux - see instructions for compiling a kernel.

cmdline.txt: Parameters passed to the kernel on boot.

Optional files:

config.txt: A configuration file read by the GPU. Use this to override set the video mode, alter system clock speeds, voltages, etc.

Required Software Setup

(This excutable can to write to your harddisk so exercise caution using it!)

make a copy named dd-removable.exe

(That excutable refuses to write to your harddisk as it is named dd-removable
As long as you use dd-removable.exe you can not lose your harddisk)

Connect an SD card to the computer

run "dd-removable –list"

Should give something like this:

rawwrite dd for windows version 0.6beta3.
Written by John Newbigin <jn@it.swin.edu.au>
This program is covered by terms of the GPL Version 2.
NT Block Device Objects
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition0
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DR8
Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 512
size is 4075290624 bytes

This "\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition0" is the part you need.

Reading an image from the SD Card

BEWARE: DO THIS WRONG AND YOU CAN LOSE YOUR HARDDISK!!!

Obviously, you can NOT use 'dd-removable' to read an image as that executable refuses to write to your harddisk (so extra care is required here as you use 'windd').